By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Several leaders of grassroots women’s organisation in Kono District have embarked on a sensitisation drive in five chiefdoms in the district after completing their training programme on women’s property and land rights. The chiefdoms are Nimikoro, Nimiyama, Gbense, Fiama and Kamara. The UNDP funded the one-year pilot project which was implemented by the Italian organisation, COOPI to raise the awareness of grassroots women in the district. The supervisor of the project, Mariama Kamanda told Politico that the project aimed at "making women’s property and land rights a reality in those selected communities.” She noted that in their research conducted in those communities showed that “over 95% of grassroots women are totally denied land, property and inheritance of their late husbands,” adding: “such a situation in a society yearning for development at a material time like this was uncalled for and unacceptable." Kamanda noted that when a woman’s husband died in Sierra Leone, the relatives of the deceased would seize all the property which both the wife and the deceased husband had worked for throughout their years together. She said that little consideration was given to the widow who usually stayed with the children. She said women’s property and land rights were critical issues in Sierra Leone because of customs and traditions, pointing out that the country would only develop with the full participation of women “who are in vast majority in the country”. She said that it was against that background that COOPI had undertaken the training of grassroots community women’s leaders who were directly affected by the practice. She said the women that were trained were “well prepared and loaded” with the necessary information needed to engage their colleague women, traditional authorities, local courts and the judiciary who preside over land and property cases in their respective communities. One of the beneficiaries, Mary Morsay told Politico that the biggest problem they were encountering as women was the denial of land, property and inheritance after the death of their husbands. She thanked COOPI for “empowering and showing us the light” adding that they were not going to use this to disrespect their husbands and the traditional authorities, “but to agitate for our God-given rights”. The section chief of Dangbaidu Section in Kamara Chiefdom thanked COOPI for the training describing it as a “milestone” in the development of women in the district. He pledged his support to the women for the success of the project. (C) Politico 13/08/13
